My status bar flashes on the bottom of the screen for a brief moment then disappears. I guess I kind of tune it out as I don't notice it much, and my screen does not have the ghosting issues. Unfortunately, no two E Ink screens are alike in this regard; some have more problems with ghosting than others.

Yes, the Story HD is a nice simple eReader. Nothing fancy, but it is very light and I love having the physical keyboard and HD screen. I actually really love the sound of the key clicks also. It's like an auditory recognition of progress lol.